US Secretary of State Colin Powell holding up a vial that could be used to hold anthrax, in his presentation to the UN in February 2003, ahead of the Iraq invasion. Photograph: Timothy A Clary/EPA

It has been 10 long years since "Shock and Awe" – the opening bombardment of Baghdad – lit up the skies above the Tigris. A decade later, we know far more about the case the Bush administration made to the world to justify its war of choice to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Books like Hubris by David Corn and Michael Isikoff, and British commission and US Senate reports have catalogued the extent to which intelligence was misused to mislead the public.

Yet, even as the intervening period has brought profound change for theUnited States and its role in the world, have we learned the lessons of that disastrous period? And what were those lessons?

For nearly a year prior to the invasion, President Bush and his administration peppered the airwaves with serious accusations against Saddam Hussein, including claims of aluminum tubes that could be used in centrifuges to enrich uranium, and of Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium yellowcake from Africa. The intelligence supporting the claims was either not believed or was highly disputed by the experts. But that did not stop senior government officials from repeating them incessantly; nor did it prevent the powerful neoconservative ideologues who were the war's most fervent supporters from parroting them with menacingly jingoistic passion.

As a covert CIA operations officer working frantically in the months before the war to find and verify hard intelligence about Iraq's presumed WMD program, Valerie was keenly interested in watching Secretary of State Colin Powell address the United Nations on 6 February 2003. His reputation and service to the United States was stellar, and he was viewed as the lone moderate inside what many others considered to be a hawkish cabinet.

As Valerie watched the speech unfold on TV from CIA headquarters that morning, she experienced what can only be described as "cognitive dissonance". It became clear, as Powell laid out the case for war (with CIA Director George Tenet sitting conspicuously just behind the secretary's right shoulder), that his robust claims about the state of Iraqi WMD simply did not match the intelligence which she had worked on daily for months.

Powell's claim from a discredited defector code-named "Curveball" on Iraq's biological weapons capability was particularly alarming. Valerie knew that "Curveball" had been deemed a "fabricator" by the agency, meaning that none of his intelligence could be believed.

The implications suddenly become obvious: we were watching a kabuki play and the outcome was predetermined. The Bush administration was determined to go to war, however bad the intelligence, and not even Secretary of State Powell was going to stand in the way.

Joe, too, watched Powell's speech, wondering whether the secretary would repeat the statement, first made by President Bush in his state of the union address several days earlier , that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." At the request of the CIA, Joe had investigated that claim in February 2002, as it pertained to Niger and had reported back to the agency that there was no evidence to support the charge. Tellingly, Colin Powell made no mention at the UN of any Iraqi effort to seek uranium, either from Niger or anywhere else in Africa.

Rumors of a Niger-Iraq uranium deal had first surfaced in Rome in 2001, as documents purporting to be related to the sale of 500 metric tonnes of yellowcake (a lightly refined uranium ore) circulated in intelligence circles and among journalists. Those documents were later found to be forgeries, but by the time the charge made its way into the president's speech, it had already been largely discounted by both the State Department and the CIA. The agency's director told the White House three times not to use the claim because the CIA believed it to be false.

The now infamous 16 words made it into the state of the union speech only by agreement between the White House and the CIA to attribute the charge to the British government, which had published such a claim in its "White Paper" on Iraq, in September 2002. Unfortunately, as then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw testified to the House of Commons foreign affairs select committee in June 2003, the British claim had been based on separate intelligence from the forged documents, and that the British had not shared their intelligence with the US government.

In sum, we are left to believe that a significant part of President Bush's case for war was based on intelligence that neither he nor his intelligence officials had even seen. The declassification of several documents in recent years, and a US Senate investigation report published in 2008 conclude that there was far closer collusion between the Bush and Blair administrations than the Straw testimony suggests. Yet, the British government to this day continues to stand behind its "separate intelligence" – which it has yet to make public.

The Powell address to the UN and the Niger-Iraq saga are but two examples of the efforts of the Bush administration to manipulate intelligence to support its political objectives and the lengths to which it went to secure support for its war. As former White House press secretary Scott McClellan put it:

"Bush and his White House were engaging in a carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval to our advantage."

That it was so successful is an indictment of a corrupt administration. But it is also emblematic of the failure of the checks and balances that are the hallmark of our democracy. As Obama appointees John Kerry and Chuck Hagel can attest, the US Congress was ineffective, to say the least, in the exercise of its oversight responsibilities. (The same applies to the UK Parliament.) The Washington press corps was dilatory in its investigative reporting – valuing access and cozy relationships with senior officials above the search for truth; ultimately, the media served as lapdogs rather than watchdogs.

And the public, still reeling from 911 and whipped up by the fear-mongering since, instinctively trusted its leaders. Given the full force and power of the administration's efforts to sell the war, it is no wonder that nearly 60% of Americans were in favor of the invasion in the early part of 2003.

Not surprisingly, that figure has flipped, with nearly 60% of Americans now saying that the Iraq war was a mistake; more than 70% of the British public agree. We owe it to ourselves and to our partners in the "coalition of the willing" to confront the fact that, when it mattered a decade ago, our Congress, our press, and we as citizens were not vigilant enough in holding our government to account for its statements and actions.

We did not do nearly enough to prevent this tragedy perpetrated on Iraq, on the world, and on ourselves.

When tariffs
and food and fuel subsidies are eliminated under an IMF diktat, small farmers
and the landless know they have been declared expendable. They join the 750
million people already under-employed, and unemployed. The World Resources
Institute says the toll of globalization reached 13-18 million child deaths
every year; or 12 million children under the age of five, according tot the UN
Development Report. ‘If 100 million have been killed in the formal wars of the
twentieth century,’ wrote Michael McKinley, ‘why are they to be privileged in
comprehension over the annual [death] toll of children from (IMF imposed) structural
adjustment programmes since 1982?’ He quoted Lester C. Thurow’s view that ‘the
tragedy afflicting humanity [was] neither metaphor, nor simile, of war, but war
itself.’

Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits
but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage –
torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment
without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians – which does not
change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side… The nationalist not
only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a
remarkable capacity of not even hearing about them.

These two
agents had excellent relations with Tehran's street gangs, and Roosevelt told
them he now wished to use those gangs to set off riots around the city. To his
dismay, they replied that they could no longer help him because the risk of
arrest had become too great. This was a potentially fatal blow to Roosevelt's
new plan. He responded in the best tradition of secret agents. First he offered
the two agents $50,000 to continue working with him. They remained unmoved.
Then he added the second part of his deal: if the men refused, he would kill
them. That changed their minds. They left the embassy compound with a briefcase
full of cash and a renewed willingness to help. That week, a plaque of violence
descended on Tehran. Gangs of thugs ran wildly through the streets, breaking
shop windows, firing guns into mosques, beating passersby, and shouting 'Long Live Mossadeqh and Communism!' Other
thugs, claiming alliance to the self-exciled shah attacked the first ones.
Leaders of both factions were actually working for Roosevelt...

By the
early 1950s, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. was a senior officer in the CIA's Middle
Eastern division.[citation needed] At that time, there was a
political crisis centered in Iran that commanded the focused attention of British and American
intelligence outfits. In 1951, the Iranian parliament, under the leadership of
the nationalist movement of Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, voted unanimously to nationalize
the oil industry. This shut out the immensely profitable Anglo-Iranian
Oil Company (AIOC),
which was a pillar of Britain's economy and political clout. A month after that
vote, Mossadegh was elected prime minister of Iran.[6]

In
response to nationalization, Britain placed an embargo on Iranian oil exports,
which worsened the already fragile economy. Neither the AIOC nor Mossadegh was
open to compromise in this period, with Britain insisting on a restoration of
the AIOC and Mossadegh willing only to negotiate the terms of its compensation
for lost assets. U.S. President Harry S. Truman ruled out joining Britain in a
coup against Mossadegh, and Britain felt unable to act without American
cooperation,[citation needed] particularly since Mossadegh
had shut down their embassy in 1952. Truman's successor, President Dwight
D. Eisenhower, was
persuaded by anti-communist arguments that there was potential for Iran's
CommunistTudeh
Party to
capitalize on political instability and assume power, aligning Iran and its
immense oil resources with the Soviet bloc. Coup plans which had
stalled under Truman were revived by an eager intelligence corps, with powerful
aid from the brothers John Foster Dulles (Secretary
of State)
and Allen Welsh Dulles (Director
of Central Intelligence), after Eisenhower's inauguration in 1953.

According
to Roosevelt, he slipped across the border under his CIA cover as ‘James
Lockridge’ on June 19, 1953. He was put up in the capital, Tehran, in a place
rented by British intelligence…

Under
Roosevelt's direction, the CIA and British intelligence funded and led a
campaign of black propaganda and bribery leading to a coup d'etat to overthrow Mossadegh with the
help of military forces loyal to the Shah in Operation Ajax. The plot hinged on orders
signed by the Shah to dismiss Mossadegh as prime minister and replace him with
General Fazlollah Zahedi, a choice agreed on by the British
and Americans.

Despite
the high-level coordination and planning, the coup faltered initially and the
Shah fled Iran. After a brief exile in Italy, however, the Shah was brought
back again, this time through a second coup which was successful.

In his
book All the Shah's Men: An
American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, The New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer reported that the CIA
ordered Roosevelt to leave Iran. Roosevelt ignored the order and, instead
organized a second coup, this one successful. The deposed Mossadegh was
arrested, given a show trial, and placed in solitary confinement for three
years in military prison, followed by house arrest for life. Zahedi was
installed to succeed prime minister Mossadegh.

After that
coup, Kinzer reported that the Shah said to Roosevelt, "I owe my throne to
God, my people, my army—and to you." […]

In 2003,
William Blum, in Killing Hope: US
Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II criticized
Roosevelt for providing no evidence when he ‘argu[ed] that Mossadegh had to be
removed to prevent a communist takeover’ of Iran. Blum noted that while
Roosevelt kept repeating how Mossadegh was a danger due to his seizure of the
oil industry and his other Socialist reforms as well as his cooperation with
the Tudeh Party, Mossadegh's role was much more nuanced. This view was
shared by many in the Intelligence community, although most notably the head of
the CIA station in Iran resigned rather than participate in the coup.

John Foster Dulles and the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, had been legal council for the United Fruit Company for decades and John Foster Dulles was also a major shareholder in UFC. And at the time John Foster Dulles was also the Secretary of State under President Dwight D Eisenhower. Dulles’s grandfather had also been Secretary’s of State in the time of President Ben Harrison. Allen W Dulles the brother of John Foster Dulles was also a major shareholder of the company and whiled away his empty hours being the Director of the CIA. General Robert Carter, head of the National Security Council was a former Chairman of the Board of United Fruit. Thomas G Corcorran, everyone’s “Mr Fixit” – an appalling man whose biography would be a true adventure story- and who was often accused of corrupt behaviour back home, worked for the CIA was a paid consultant for United Fruit.'

Events which it is felt ought
not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied... Some
nationalists are not far from schizophrenia, living quite happily amid dreams
of power and conquest which have no connection with the physical world.

In a single night we burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo
— men, women and children… Killing 50-90% of the people in 67 Japanese cities
and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds
of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve… What makes it
immoral if you lose but not if you win? … [Lemay], and I’d say I, were behaving
as war criminals.

Robert McNamara. The Fog of
War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. 2003

Susan Sarandon: In the late afternoon of December 4,
1980, an unmarked grave was found in a field in El Salvador. When it was opened
in the presence of the U.S. ambassador, it revealed the bodies of four women:
Maryknoll Sisters Mara Clark and Eda Ford, Ursaline Sister Dorothy Kazel, and
lay missionary Jean Donovan.

Of the five officers later
found responsible for the rape and murder of these women, three were graduates
of the United States Army School of the Americas. According to the Pentagon,
the mission of the school is to train the armed forces of Latin America,
promote military professionalism, foster cooperation among multinational
military forces, and to expand the trainees' knowledge of United States customs
and traditions.

The School of the Americas
originated in 1946 in Panama. Now, it is located on the grounds of Fort
Benning, Georgia. The school teaches commando operations, sniper training, how
to fire an M-16, and psychological warfare. Since no major declared war between
Latin American countries has occurred in decades and the communist threat has
vanished, why provide this kind of training?

Representative Joseph Kennedy: If you look at the course
ranges that are offered to these inividuals, they in fact are a dedicated way
of teaching military leaders in foreign nations how to subvert their local
communities.

Susan Sarandon: Since it opened, more than 55,000
military officials from 23 Latin American and Carribean countries have trained
at the school. About 2,000 students a year. As facts have emerged about the
school and its graduates, it has drawn the attention of a growing number of
human rights activists, such as Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois.

Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois: Just down the road here is the
School of the Americas. It's a combat school. Most of the courses revolve
around what they call ‘counter-insurgency warfare.’ Who are the ‘insurgents?’
We have to ask that question. They are the poor. They are the people in Latin
America who call for reform. They are the landless peasants who are hungry.
They are health care workers, human rights advocates, labor organizers. They
become the insurgents. They are seen as ‘the enemy.’ They are those who become
the targets of those who learn their lessons at the School of the Americas…

Susan Sarandon: El Salvador is only part of the
school's story. In the entry area of one of its main buildings are photographs
of those the school honors, its so-called Hall of Fame. At the top of the list,
Hugo Banzer, former dictator of Bolivia, a graduate of the school. Some of the
others similarly honored are the former dictators of Honduras, Ecuador, and
Argentina. And generals from eight other Latin and Caribbean nations, many cited
by human rights groups for involvement in human rights abuses in their own
countries.

Among other graduates, Manuel
Noriega, former president of Panama, currently in prison in the United States.
Four of the five ranking Honduran officers who organized death squads in the
1980s as part of Battalion 316, are graduates. Half of the 250 Columbian
officers cited for human rights abuses attended the school. The three highest
ranking Peruvian officers convicted in February 1994 of murdering nine
university students and a professor were all graduates. Also, the Peruvian army
commander who brought out tanks to obstruct initial investigation of the
murders.

During the dictatorship of the
Somoza family [in Nicaragua], over 4,000 National Guard troops graduated from the
school. Many of them later became known as the ‘Contras,’ responsible for the
deaths of thousands of Nicaraguan peasants in the 1980s. The general in charge
of Argentina's so-called ‘Dirty War’ was a school graduate. During that
internal conflict in the late-1970s and early-1980s, an estimated 30,000 people
were tortured, disappeared, and murdered.

General Hector Gramajo of
Guatemala was the featured speaker at the school's graduation ceremonies in
1991. Human rights groups claim he is the architect of strategies that
legalized military atrocities in Guatemala resulting in the death of over
200,000 men, women, and children…

Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois: And what's very important
right now I feel is to let out voices be heard. Bishop Romero said it best
before he was assassinated by someone who trained at the School of the
Americas. He said, ‘We who have a voice, we have to speak for the voiceless.’ I
realize that we here in this country have a voice. We can speak without having
to worry about being dissappeared or tortured or being picked by [by the police
or military]. We can speak, and I just hope that we can speak clearly and
boldly on this issue.

Maryknoll World Productions. School of
the Americas: School of Assassins 1995

A group of 17 Afghan police officeers were drugged by their
comrades while on duty and then shot and killed in their sleep Wednesday in
what appears to be the worst episode in a string of similar attacks, according
to Afghan officials…

The policing program has been controversial in many parts of
Afghanistanbecause of prominent
insider attacks, as well as accusations of human rights violence by the police
officers…

The officers are vetted and trained by U.S. Speical
Operations troops...